'Tory Popularity Worst Since Before Election'

Support for the Tories has plunged since the Budget, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll that gives Labour its best score in almost nine years.

Support for the Tories has plunged since the Budget, according to a new Guardian/ICM poll that gives Labour its best score in almost nine years.

A three-point Conservative lead over Labour just before George Osborne's Budget has now given way to an eight-point deficit.

Tory support has slumped by six points in a single month, down from 39% to 33%, while Labour is up five from 36% to 41%, to claim an eight-point lead.

The Liberal Democrats are unchanged on 15%, while the combined total of the smaller parties has inched up two to stand at 12%, suggesting more support for UKIP and the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists.

The Conservative slide is the biggest seen in the monthly Guardian/ICM series since the autumn of 2008, when the onset of the credit crunch briefly produced very volatile political conditions.

It leaves the Tories with their worst score since before the general election.

Labour, meanwhile, has broken through the 40% threshold - often said to be the benchmark for a clear election win - for the first time in many years. Indeed, its 41% score is the party's strongest showing in the series since May 2003.

At that time, Iain Duncan Smith was heading the embattled Tory opposition to Tony Blair's government, and Labour will be thrilled at the thought that the fallout from the budget and other problems such as the petrol panic may now have landed David Cameron's party in comparable difficulties.

But the detail of the poll does not suggest a sea change in public opinion.

On the crucial question of economic competence, in particular, the Government remains comfortably ahead - with Cameron and Osborne trusted to run the economy properly by 44% of respondents, with 31% believing Labour leader Ed Miliband and his shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, would provide more effective financial management.

This continuing 13-point margin will be a great comfort to the Conservatives, although the trend is now running against them here too.

At the end of last year, Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne led Mr Miliband and Mr Balls by 21 points on economic management, a gap which narrowed to 18 in January and 17 just before the Budget, before narrowing by another four points this month.

Ratings for individual politicians suggest that the headline Labour lead is driven more by disillusion with the coalition than by any positive view of the opposition.

By wide margins, voters reject the idea that any of the three party leaders "understand people like me", and also the suggestion that any of them are "good in a crisis".

On both scores, Mr Miliband's standing is somewhat worse than his already negative scores in December.

The big difference, however, concerns Mr Cameron's perceived competence. At the turn of the year, by 50% to 40% voters trusted him to do well in a crisis. But that 10-point advantage has now turned into a 13 point deficit, with voters now rejecting the idea that he is good in a crisis by a 50% to 37% margin.

The poll asks about voting intentions for Westminster as opposed to the upcoming council elections, where there has been speculation that fringe parties may do well.

Some recent polls have shown a surge in support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), suggesting it could even push the Lib Dems into fourth place. But ICM puts it on just 3%, up two points from 1% a month ago.

The UK scores for other smaller parties are: 4% for the Scottish Nationalists, 1% for Plaid Cymru, 2% for the Greens, 1% for the British National Party and 1% for other minority groupings.